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1.
Deep River Blues 06:01
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2.
Transit 03:07
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3.
Old Country Stomp 03:19
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4.
Wake up Jacob 07:24
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5.
Rite of Passage 03:12
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6.
Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor 16:30
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about

As a long-time member of the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra, l was delighted when the opportunity arose to create a large-scale work for this amazing and unique collective. During this period, I was deeply absorbed in the energy field of my then-young son Dan Nelson’s passionate and exhaustive exploration of American traditional songs of the early 20th-century via the classic Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music and many other sources. After many, many hours spent listening to these recordings and practicing and performing this music with him, I became so deeply engaged with and moved by this rich body of musical and cultural material that l ultimately felt inspired to explore it through my own creative sensibilities.

The result is a distinctive mixture of elements which bring a contemporary, jazz-informed lens to a diverse set of four American traditional songs of the 1920s and 19305. The haunting Deep River Blues was originally recorded by the Delmore Brothers, but is best known in versions by Doc Watson.

Old Country Stomp is an energetic dance tune found on a recording by the itinerant Texan, Henry Thomas. Our version includes a rendition of the intro and interlude riff Thomas plays on the quills, here played first on piccolo, then orchestrated for the full ensemble. Wake Up Jacob is an unusually loose and fluid fiddle tune recorded by Prince Albert Hunt’s Texas Ramblers. The bluesy, troubled Make Me a Pallet On Your Floor is most closely associated with Mississippi John Hurt.

Deep River treats these inspired, historically rich songs at times abstractly, at times as springboards for Aardvark's inventive improvisers, and finally in surprising though recognizable settings featuring Aardvark's outstanding guest vocalists Marcia Gallagher and Timothy Johnson.

Purchase CD:
store.cdbaby.com/cd/richardnelson12

credits

released January 1, 2015

Richard Nelson, Composer/ Arranger

Aardvark Jazz Orchestra:
Mark Harvey - Music Director, Conductor

Saxophones and Woodwinds:
Arni Cheatham, alto saxophone, flute; Peter Bloom, alto saxophone, flute, piccolo; Phil Scarff, tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, clarinet; Chris Rakowski, tenor saxophone, clarinet; Dan Zupan, baritone saxophone, bass clarinet

Trumpets:
K.C. Dunbar, Jeanne Snodgrass, Mark Tipton

Trombones:
Bob Pilkington, Jay Keyser, Jeff Marsanskis;

Bass Trombone/ Tuba
Bill Lowe

Vocalists:
Marcia Gallagher, Timothy Johnson

Richard Nelson, guitar; John Funkhouser, string bass; Harry Wellott, drums

Produced by Richard Nelson Recorded by Noah Cole at Colby College, Waterville, Maine
Mixed and mastered by Noah Cole www.noahmcole.com

Cover image Ripple by Rebekah Younger www.rebekahyounger.com
Photo of Richard Nelson: ©Joanna Eldredge Morrissey
Design and Layout by Robyn Kanner www.robynkanner.com

Thanks to the University of Maine at Augusta for supporting this project with Presidential and Professional Development grants.

Published by Sound Around Music (BMI)
Heliotrope Records 1012
www.richardnelsonmusic.com

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Richard Nelson Maine

Composer/guitarist active in New York, Boston, and Maine.

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